Creativity

Kristina Socanski Celik touched upon the relationship between creativity and spirituality in her PhD defense earlier today. She has written a dissertation about the music of two 20th-century composers, Arvo Pärt and Ljubica Marić, who have used ancient religious chants in their modern compositions. The relationship between creativity, spirituality, and religion surfaced several times during the disputation. This was particularly because both composers have a spiritual approach to their compositions, while only one (Pärt) is religious....

I have been pondering the term “creativity” lately. Creativity is a term that “everybody” knows but nobody manages to define. Here, I will describe how I came up with my current definition of creativity as the ability to create something novel and meaningful. Defining creativity The American Psychological Association (APA) defines creativity as: the ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts. They focus on creation through (new) production or development....

Earlier today I went to the release seminar of a new book on creativity and idea development called Slagkraft - Håndbok i idéutvikling by Erik Lerdahl. In his introduction, Erik Lerdahl stressed the importance of creativity not being something that happens by random, but rather that it is a “muscle” that can be trained. Nice metaphor. What I found most interesting during the seminar was the talk by Ragnar Johansen, the marketing director from Stabburet, a Norwegian food producer....